Media associated with this campaign

Overview of this campaign

The primary objective of the campaign was to provide useful, engaging content and advice to the first time buyers; allowing Bank of Ireland to become leaders in this space. In this case, Mortgage applications were the key KPI . The content needed to really connect with their target audience in a way that would resonate, engage and ultimately convert delivering the key KPIS’s set out at the initial phase.

A series of 6 written articles and 2 videos produced by our Content Studio team were seeded across irishtimes.com and myhome.ie and then hosted in a dedicated Bank of Ireland Mortgage hub on irishtimes.com in one central hub that we built upon as the campaign progressed. Content was repurposed for the printed property supplement and main Irish Times paper. Experientially, an exclusive First Time Buyer Event was also held in The Irish Times, where 100 potential customers enjoyed an informative evening with nationally renowned TV architect Dermot Bannon, John O’Beirne Bank of Ireland’s Mortgage Bank Managing Director and Angela Keegan the MD of www.myhome.ie. At the event, all efforts to convert the target audience into Bank of Ireland mortgage customers were presented. An expert advice hub was set up, run by Bank of Ireland’s Mobile Mortgage Advisors, creating leads, answering questions, engaging with the audience, data capturing, and ultimately converting.

The Irish Times internal objectives;

Showcase ability to offer a bespoke and targeted campaign, co-ordinating all relevant elements from content, video, through to social, event and extended reach.

Extend reach by collaborating with property site MyHome.ie. (the single largest property advertising website in the country, a one-stop-shop for house hunters receiving over 1 million individual visitors monthly)

Recruit the right audience through social channels and manage a successful event.

Results for this campaign

The campaign delivered an immediate, directly attributed, 5 fold return based on the average lifetime value of the mortgage customer versus the total cost of the campaign.

Print, digital and social combined, the content reached more than half a million people. We conducted research with our reader panel, with 477 responses, measuring campaign recall, brand sentiment and action.

7% of our daily audience are planning on buying a home or getting a mortgage in the next year, 38% of these said Bank of Ireland would be the 1st bank that they’d approach. This was 73% higher than the 2nd most referenced financial institution.

65% of those under 40 (the key target group) found the content very interesting, and over 50% found the advice very helpful, with 48% saying they feel more knowledgeable about mortgages.

Overjoyed with the campaign performance, Bank of Ireland commissioned a follow up First Time Buyers series less than a month after the end of this series, and at the time of award entry, a third series is currently in planning – each series a direct repeat of the first, highly successful execution. In addition to this directly attributable win, the Bank of Ireland Mortgage Hub repositioned Bank of Ireland, as a companion, advisor and facilitator to all those on the Mortgage Journey.

“The Irish Times Content Studio campaign was incredibly effective, and delivered substantial return for the business. A change in direction, it was ultimately a driver of results. We were grateful for the vision of The Irish Times team, and we are currently on our 3rd reiteration of this same campaign, such was the success of the original deployment.”